Capital Starship (Ixan Legacy Book 1)

by Scott Bartlett

  It hadn’t just been the shuttle itself he’d wanted, even though he expected it to play a significant role in the coming mission—it was a craft with lots of artillery, designed for direct actions against targets where heavy resistance was anticipated. But besides the shuttle, Gamble had also wanted Haynes himself flying it. The man had demonstrated some serious ability during their escape from Tyros; flying that had probably saved the captain’s life, as well as Gamble’s. That’s who I want taking us down there.

  “Johansen,” Gamble said, pointing at one of the marines. “Did you bring what I need?”

  “You got it, Major,” the marine said, slapping a lidded trolley next to him.

  “You’re a good man, Johansen.”

  As he’d left Cybele, Gamble’s com had shown Johansen as the closest to Flight Deck Delta—as well as the closest to the nearby armory. He’d quickly instructed the man to get the necessary artillery, including the charges they’d use to blow that generator to pieces.

  “You’ve all been chosen for the weapon you rate highest on,” Gamble told the assembled marines. “I put together this direct action on the fly, as I was jogging here. If I can do that, y’all can handle any confusion that arises with minimal fuss. Grab your weapon, sort yourselves out, and get on the shuttle. You have thirty seconds, marines.”

  Johansen flicked the lid of the trolley onto the deck, and Gamble’s marines clustered around the guns, digging through them until they found the one they were strongest on. That done, they sprinted toward the shuttle’s open airlock. The last marine piled in twenty-nine seconds after Gamble had given them their time limit. Not bad.

  “No need to wait for us to get all comfy-cozy, Psycho,” Gamble told Haynes over a wide channel. “Let’s go now, while the shuttle airlock is still pressurizing.”

  “Going.”

  Gamble felt the shuttle leave the flight deck and thrust toward the airlock on its way out of the Vesta.

  Captain Husher’s voice came over a two-way channel. “Major we’re approaching the location we believe the forcefield generator to be. Our plan is to decelerate and remain in the vicinity for as long as we can, in case you need some air support.”

  “I appreciate it, sir,” Gamble said. He would have told the captain not to endanger the ship needlessly, but he knew he didn’t need to.

  “You’re ready to deploy?”

  “We’re heading for the airlock now.”

  “Good luck and God speed, Major.”

  “Thank you, sir. Same to you.”

  Seconds later, the exterior airlock door opened, and they were rocketing out into the void. None of the marines had taken their helmets off—Gamble was glad he didn’t have to tell them that. This flight wouldn’t be long enough to justify it, and besides, in the middle of a battle, the chance of losing interior pressure was high.

  “Remember, everyone, we’re going to be much lighter on our feet down on the moon,” Gamble said over a wide channel. “The good news is, so will any Ixa we encounter. That means their fancy new genetic enhancements will count for less when it comes to running us down like they did on Tyros. The bad news is, we can probably expect to encounter some heavy firepower as a result. Stay frosty, everyone.”

  “Oorah,” the marines answered as one.

  The staccato of one of the shuttle’s turrets sounded overhead, followed by something landing on the hull.

  Within two seconds, Gamble had unclasped his restraints and was running for the airlock. He slapped the panel to let himself in, entered, and pressed an inner panel to close the hatch behind him.

  Through the narrowing gap, he glimpsed several marines who were clawing at their restraints, as well as Tort, who’d simply ripped his off and was halfway to the airlock.

  Too late, Gamble thought as the hatch slid closed. “Psycho, I need an airlock override, and I need it by the time this chamber finishes depressurizing. I know what that sound was, and I know there’s nothing you can do about it now that it’s made its way past your turrets.”

  “You sure about this, Major?” Haynes said. “This isn’t—”

  “What you’d call the safest maneuver? Son, I’m gonna show you what psycho really means.”

  The outer airlock hatch opened, and Gamble gripped an overhead handle with one hand to swing himself onto the shuttle’s roof while keeping a firm grip on his R-57 with the other.

  Twisting around, he activated the magnets in his combat boots to secure himself to the hull, and then he tensed his leg muscles to straighten himself.

  Just in time—he came face to face with a robot that was turning toward him and brandishing its razor-edged limbs.

  One metal arm came at Gamble. He fired, his bullets propelling the limb away. The second arm swung toward him, and he shot that away, too.

  Before the robot could make another move, Gamble deactivated the magnets in his left boot long enough to deliver a swift kick to the thing’s midsection, quickly retracting his leg before it was sawed off.

  The robot staggered backward, and Gamble fired a round into it, sending it clattering across the hull.

  The shuttle was approaching the moon, now, and Gamble’s legs were aching with the strain of staying upright and balanced.

  Gunfire flashed from the moon’s surface, and Gamble dropped to the shuttle’s hull. The robot scrabbled soundlessly across the metal toward him—he could feel the vibrations.

  Flipping onto his back and slapping another clip into the gun, he emptied it into the thing’s face, point blank. That did the trick: the robot lost its motor power, floating off the shuttle, which proceeded to land roughly on the moon’s surface seconds later.

  The flashes of at least a dozen muzzles all across the moon’s surface told him they were already getting shot at by a lot of hostiles. Gamble hauled himself over to a squat barrier on the shuttle’s roof, intended for exactly the purpose he planned to put it to.

  “Get those turrets into play, Chief Haynes,” he said over a wide channel. “Marines, deploy around the shuttle and use it as cover. We’re already in the shit, here.”

  Chapter 59

  Seems Irrational

  “The destroyer is coming back around the moon, sir,” Winterton said. “It’s headed straight for us.”

  “Acknowledged,” Husher said tersely as he studied sensor data from the moon’s surface, which showed hundreds of Gok and mutated Ixa moving on Major Gamble’s position. With only the two squads Husher had told the marine commander to take, he looked certain to be overrun.

  “The forcefield is closing in rapidly, sir,” Winterton said. “It’s now half the size it was. We’ll soon have barely any room to maneuver at all, and the Gok attack force will reach our Air Group within fifteen minutes.”

  “Acknowledged, Ensign,” Husher ground out, barely containing his frustration. “Helm,” he said, twisting around in the command seat to look at the Winger.

  “Captain?”

  “Spin this ship around and point our starboard side at that destroyer. Without delay. It’s time to use our last Hydras.”

  “Yes, sir.” Vy said, punching a few commands into her console. With that, the Vesta began to rotate on the tactical display.

  “Tremaine, fire on my mark. In the meantime, I need you to direct kinetic impactors toward the surface of the moon, using our underside point defense turrets. If we leave Gamble and his marines to deal with all those attackers, they’ll be overrun within minutes.”

  “We’ll be offering ourselves to Teth by remaining here,” Kaboh said. “He’ll use his particle beam to finish us.”

  “That’s what the Hydras are for,” Husher said.

  “What about when they’re depleted?”

  “I’ll deal with that situation once I’m in it,” Husher growled. “One thing at a time. Tremaine, make sure to fire well away from our combat shuttle”

  By willing his Oculenses to show him a magnified visual of the moon’s surface, he was able to see that Gamble had set up two heavy machine
guns in the shuttle’s shadow. At the moment Husher zoomed in, a rocket streamed out from near the shuttle’s hull, and then another, from the opposite side. In the meantime, the shuttle’s four turrets were firing full bore, and doing considerable damage. That was impressive, considering it was only Haynes operating them, though he was likely using an AI for assistance.

  The marines were mounting an admirable defense, but it couldn’t last—not on its own. The Ixa and Gok had them surrounded, meaning the shuttle offered little cover, other than the airlock and fold-out barriers that were now standard issue for combat shuttles. Already, Husher could spot four marines down of the twenty who’d gone to the moon’s surface.

  Then, Tremaine brought the Vesta’s underside point defense turrets to bear, operating them manually. It was an unusual, perhaps unprecedented way to use them, but it had an immediate and devastating effect.

  Clouds of regolith dust plumed up from the moon’s surface as impactors sheared pressure suits in two, throwing the Ixan and Gok ranks into utter chaos.

  “Sir…” Winterton said.

  Husher glanced at the tactical display, specifically at the destroyer’s proximity. “Hold, Tremaine,” he said.

  “Yes, sir…” the Tactical officer said, though he sounded as anxious as Winterton.

  “Superheating along the starboard side, Captain,” the sensor operator said. “One of our flight decks is threatened. I strongly recommend—”

  “I said wait for it!”

  Long seconds passed as the Vesta’s hull sloughed off, the effect creeping closer and closer to Flight Deck Omicron.

  “Fire Hydras!” Husher said.

  Tremaine did, and the superheating persisted two seconds more before Husher was rewarded for his steady hand. The destroyer veered to starboard in what was clearly a desperate maneuver. Such a sudden course change would be hard on any ship’s engines, and what was more, it wouldn’t grant the warship the velocity it needed to outstrip the missiles.

  The enemy point defense systems blazed to life, and the destroyer fired a wave of robot-missiles, in its first attempt to use them in an intercept capacity.

  It almost worked. Two of the Hydra fragments got through, punching sizable hulls in the destroyer’s hull, which retreated back around the moon at speed.

  Husher drew a breath, knowing his next order would likely be the hardest one he’d ever given: “Kaboh, note the destroyer’s trajectory and come up with a course that will intercept it, head-on.”

  The Kaithian didn’t answer, and several CIC officers turned to Husher wearing expressions ranging from confusion to consternation.

  “If we leave now, Major Gamble will be overrun,” Tremaine said.

  “There’s a good chance of that,” Husher replied. “But if this engagement continues, it’s a certainty that we’ll lose against Teth’s destroyer in this confined space, and our Air Group will go down before we do. Teth will expect us to stay and protect our marines, since they’re our ticket out. That’s why we have to do this.”

  “Seems irrational to me,” Kaboh said.

  “I agree. But when you’re dealing with an enemy able to anticipate every rational option, irrational ones are all you have left.” Glancing at the tactical display, Husher saw how his Pythons were now hugging the forcefield as the Gok warships closed in. Taking a deep breath, he said, “This is my order. I expect you all to carry it out.”

  Chapter 60

  If the Captain's Left Us to Die

  “Major,” one of his marines, Roux, said over a two-way. “The Vesta’s leaving her overwatch position.”

  Risking a glance overhead in between laying down suppressive fire against the Ixa and Gok closing in on their position, Gamble grimaced inside his helmet. Next to him, Tort had hoisted a heavy machine gun on his shoulder—something no human could do—and was using it to pound away at the enemy ranks.

  “I can see that, Corporal,” he said. “You just keep on shooting.”

  Gamble had climbed down from the shuttle’s roof because of how vulnerable it made him to hostiles firing from a hilltop nearby. Instead, he’d positioned himself behind one of the fold-out barriers with which the IGF had installed all their combat shuttles years ago, meant for situations just like this one. Most of his marines were using the shuttle’s other barriers for cover. Tort was standing almost completely in the open, using the big gun to shoot at anyone who looked likely to shoot at him, but that was just Tort.

  Johansen opened up a private channel with Gamble, then. “Major,” the private said, “did you notice—”

  “I see that the Vesta’s leaving, yes.” Something glinted overhead, several meters above the barren, gray terrain. Gamble squinted at it, and he realized it was a grenade, sketching a slow parabola in the low gravity.

  “Grenade coming in from my twelve,” Gamble barked over a wide channel. “Everyone, take cover as best you can.” Around him, marines ducked behind fold-out barriers or into the shuttle’s open airlock. Everyone except Tort, that was—the Gok would probably refuse to take cover from the heat death of the universe.

  Taking careful aim, Gamble exhaled fully and squeezed the trigger. The grenade exploded meters overhead, raining down shrapnel but doing far less damage than if it had detonated at ground-level.

  With that, Gamble opened a wide channel. “Everyone, please stop contacting me privately about the Vesta leaving. I understand you’re trying not to worry your comrades, but we’re marines, damn it.” Gamble fired on a Gok who was advancing to a nearer position. The big alien didn’t bother to retreat to its previous cover, so Gamble put two more rounds into it, and the third succeeded in ripping open its pressure suit. That sent it fleeing in the opposite direction, probably for the facility that housed the forcefield generator—maybe its suit didn’t have the ability to self-seal.

  “Let me ask y’all something,” Gamble continued over the wide channel. “Does anyone think Captain Husher would leave us to fight this many Gok and Ixa without a damned good reason?”

  No one spoke. “Exactly,” he said. “If the captain’s left us to die down here, you can rest assured our deaths will mean something. No service member wants to die, but if we have to, then making sure Teth doesn’t get the foothold he wants to seems worth it to me. Can I get an oorah.”

  “Oorah!” the remaining marines yelled back at him. It wasn’t as loud as Gamble had expected—they must have lost more soldiers in the last few minutes.

  “Show them what you’re made of, marines,” Gamble said, slapping a fresh clip into his gun and emptying it into the encroaching army.

  Chapter 61

  Knots of Tension

  Struggling to keep his mind off the plight in which he’d left his dwindling marine force on the moon’s surface, Husher focused on something just as nerve-wracking: the visual feed of the moon’s horizon as it unspooled before them.

  “Eight Banshees and three Gorgons are armed and ready, sir,” Tremaine said. “Railguns have also been loaded. I’ve calculated firing solutions based on where we expect to encounter the enemy destroyer.”

  “Very good,” Husher said. And it was, except that Teth was almost never where they expected him to be.

  Indeed, as they neared the location where they’d anticipated the destroyer, Winterton spoke up: “He’s not here, sir.”

  “Full power to engines, Helm,” Husher said, gritting his teeth. “Get us back to our marines.”

  There were two possibilities: either Teth had anticipated Husher’s gambit and had looped around to attack the marines with impunity, or he’d altered his course to get a better attack angle on where he’d expected the Vesta to be. Both possibilities involved the enemy destroyer returning to where Husher had left his marines to fend for themselves.

  “He’s not attacking the marines,” Winterton said as the supercarrier completed her circuit of the moon. “It—there he is! He’s advancing over the horizon off our port-side bow.”

  “Helm, bring our nose to port until we’re
lined up with Teth’s destroyer. Tremaine, hit them with everything the moment we are.”

  “Aye, sir,” the Tactical officer said, and less than a minute after that: “Firing first four Banshees. I’ve loaded them with courses that will have them curving around to hit the destroyer’s port side.”

  “Good work,” Husher said.

  “Firing the other Banshees, kinetic impactors, and Gorgons now.”

  “The destroyer’s slow to react,” Winterton said, clutching his console as he stared hard at it. “She looks to be training her particle beam on us—but she’s reversing! Teth knows he can’t withstand a barrage like that.”

  Husher’s eyes were riveted to the main display as the missiles closed in. “Are we experiencing any superheating?”

  “We just started to,” Winterton said after shuffling some items around on his virtual display. “It’s the same spot on our bow as before—that’ll be bad, if it persists. Most of our kinetic impactors are going to miss due to the destroyer’s reverse thrust, but Banshees are still on track—damn it.”

  Husher regarded the sensor operator with eyebrows raised. It was the first he’d ever heard the man curse. “What is it, Ensign?”

  “One of the three Gorgons just went down.”

  Nodding, Husher said, “Continue nosing us to the left, Helm, and Tremaine, don’t let up on those impactors. Helm, I want more power to the engines.”

  Both officers acknowledged his orders, and Husher tried to ignore the knots of tension in his chest and deep in his stomach as he watched their attack play out.

  “We’re down to three Banshees and two Gorgons,” Winterton said. “Another Banshee just went down…another Gorgon…yes!”

  Husher didn’t need the man to tell him what had caused his sudden jubilation, since he’d watched on the tactical display as all three remaining missiles struck home.